


Of Fairy Rings and Other Things

by kappa77



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkwardness, F/M, Fairy Ring, First Meetings, Fluff, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 12:39:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10876971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kappa77/pseuds/kappa77
Summary: Vax never was one to believe in the supernatural or paranormal.That was until he was caught in a fairy ring. The situation escalated from there.





	Of Fairy Rings and Other Things

The usually empty plot of asphalt was absolutely teeming with life as cars came rolling in and people opening the trunks to start selling their wares. It was a weekly tradition for the city of Emon, what had started as separate farmer’s markets and flea markets eventually merged into one gigantic market that lasted as long as cars were in the lot.

And Vex _loved_ it, which meant she usually dragged Vax along to help.

He parked beside a red truck, got out along with his sister, and popped open the trunk to let Trinket out, tongue lolling out.

Vax knelt down beside Trinket, leash in hand. “C’mon boy, you’re hanging out with uncle today.”

Trinket dutifully walked forward, allowing for Vax to clip the leash to the harness and for Vex to unload their wares without a big happy dog getting in the way.

“You’ve got everything handled?” Vax asked, looking up to Vex who was unpacking boxes. Normally, Vex only came to the market to haggle the shit out of the people selling food, but sometimes they did come into possession of things to sell.

“As soon as you give me the keys I will.”

He tossed them to her as soon as she glanced the other way. She caught them without looking.

“Really, brother?”

He grinned, standing up “Well then, we won't be back until you've made at least one grown man cry with your bartering skills.”

“I take offense to that. It'll be at least three.”

“I'll hold you to it, stubby.”

She stuck her tongue out as Vax and Trinket made their way out of the isles of cars and people. After spending many a Sunday here Trinket automatically started leading him across the asphalt, away from the people to the edge. Two of the sides of the parking lot lead for more asphalt, but the other two had a dusty, grassy path that led to a forest. There was a small, worn down path that lead in, before the trees and bushes got too thick.

Trinket was well trained enough he knew to be careful around the dusty, grassy part, as there were sometimes broken bottles scattered around. They carefully walked on the edge between the lot and the grassy bit.

The leash was held loosely around Vax’s hand, who’s attention was half on Trinket and half casually watching the market grow. A sharp tug on the leash made Vax’s head whip around and he saw Trinket on two legs out of excitement, looking intently in the direction of the forest.

He tightened his grip on the leash. “Woah, boy, what do you see?”

Trinket woofed in response, pulling harder, forcing him to take a couple of steps so the leash wouldn’t break.

“No, Trinket, not that way.”

Trinket woofed louder.

“We don’t go in there, remember?”

But Trinket was fixated on the forest, and with one sudden burst of energy, Trinket leaped, forcing Vax to let go of the leash, and went sprinting in the forest.

“No, no, no! Trinket!” Without thinking, Vax sprinting after the dog.

As he crossed into the forest, it suddenly felt less like noon and more like twilight as the leaves blocked out most of the sunlight. Vax tried his best keep his eyes trained on Trinket, who was a ways ahead, but was forced to look at the ground as well as he nearly tripped several times.

Just as he looked up again, he saw Trinket suddenly make a sharp right. Vax’s legs burned by this point, but he pushed himself to follow because he knew Vex would never forgive him if he went back to the flea market without Trinket.

Turning right, the trees grew denser, forcing Vax to slow down, then broke into a clearing. He was momentarily blinded by the sudden appearance of the sun. He looked around, but Trinket was nowhere to be found.

“Fuck, Vex is going to kill me.”

He walked forward, hoping if he called out enough, Trinket would grow bored of whatever it was he’d seen before and come back.

Partway through yelling Trinket’s name and walking through the clearing, his feet stopped moving. He looked down, his feet not physically trapped by anything. The only thing close by were small, red mushrooms in a large circle surrounding him.

“What the-”

Before he had time to think, before him appeared a gorgeous woman. Vax blinked once, twice, and still, the woman stayed where she was, having appeared out of nowhere. She wore a golden circlet with gems imbedded and decorations resembling leaves by her pointed ears. Antlers came from… somewhere behind her ears. She wore a dark green dress, with looping, abstract designs embroidered in a lighter green. She had red hair that trailed past her shoulders. She was absolutely stunning.

Her presence only added to his confusion.

“Who- What- What is going on?” Vax finally managed to get out.

The woman’s eyes widened a touch before she smiled gleefully. “I finally caught a human! Like properly caught one!”

“Um, what?”

The woman clapped and continued smiling. “I can’t believe it!”

“What the fuck is going on? Is this a prank?”

That made the woman stop her… celebrating? “I’m... I’m not sure what that is.”

Vax fruitlessly tried jumping again, but his feet remained firmly attached to the ground.

“What the fuck is going on? Why can’t I move?”

“That’s because you’ve fallen into my trap!” She paused before saying. “You don’t mind, do you?”

He gaped at her. “I… I can’t move.”

“Yes, that’s the point of a trap,” she said slowly. She suddenly looked concerned. “You’re not hurt in anyway? Didn’t hurt your head before?”

“No, I… Please just explain what’s going on.”

She tilted her head to the side, which seemed like a hassle with antlers attached to her. “I’ve heard humans call this a fairy ring.”

“A what?”

“A fairy ring,” she said matter-of-factly. She gestured with her hand and an ornate, wooden staff appeared in her hand. With the bottom, she traced the mushroom circle. “That’s what this is.”

Vax’s brows furrowed. “That’s… That’s just a ring of mushrooms. That shouldn’t be able to do this.” He tried jumping, but remained stuck to the ground.

“Well, clearly is able, because it’s magic.”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” Vax said automatically.

She smiled. “Well, I don’t know how much you can question that, now that, you know.” She gestured with her staff that had magically appeared out of nowhere to his feet that would not lift up no matter how hard he tried and dear gods what was going on?

“Then what are you, that you can do this?”

The lady thought for a moment. “I believe your people call us fairies. Or fae, it really depends on the people. I’ve heard plenty of tales-”

Vax’s mind went blank for a moment as she rambled on.

_Fairies…_

There was a fairy standing right in front of him, who had trapped him because he had walked into a ring of mushrooms.

He had just been walking Trinket, and now there was a fairy in front of him.

The woman stared at him curiously as he had a quarter-life crisis over the _existence of fairies_.

 "Wait,” he said, when his brain wasn’t just screaming about the existence of fairies. “I’ve watched Peter Pan and Tinkerbell countless times with my sister, aren’t fairies supposed to be small? And have wings? And not exist?”

The woman giggled and then shrugged. "Well, to answer those questions in order, we generally take the form of our prey, my people don’t have wings but we can fly, and I thought we covered the existence part?”

He tried not to think too hard on the connotation of prey and him in the circle. “Can you blame me? You could be a projection for all I know.”

“What’s a projection?”

“I… It’s something that looks like an object is there, but it’s really not. It’s just made out of light.”

“Oh, well I can prove I’m real!”

“How- oh.”

Faster than Vax could realize what she was doing, the woman entered the circle with him. She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. Vax’s eyes widened when, sure enough, she was solid and warm and very much not a projection.

“So, uh, does that prove it?”

The two looked at each other for what was probably an uncomfortable amount of time, but Vax really couldn’t do much unless he wanted to fall over and possibly sprain something. When the silence prevailed for too long, he nodded and she took a step back, hand lingering for another second before falling to her side.

“How do I know you’re not just a human?” Vax’s brain supplied him with the answer of _did you not just see her do magic?_ but he was grasping at straws for some sense of reality.

“Well, um… oh!” She backed up so she was now outside the circle, and... just kind of, stood there, eyes closed, mouth moving slightly. Before he was able to comment, a sudden gust of wind blew his long, dark hair into his mouth. He spat it back out before another section got caught as the sudden wind grew, but his attention was no longer on his hair as he saw the woman start to hover above the ground. She looked ethereal in how she was effortlessly floating on the wind, hair blowing just right to frame her face.

Had his attentions not been fixated on her, he would’ve seen that the wind was only by the fairy ring; none of the trees were being blown in the wind. But Vax’s brain was really at capacity of “what the fuck?” and “holy shit this is real” so maybe it was for the best.

The winds died down and the woman landed back on her feet with only a slight stumble.

“So, uh, what do you think?”

A thousand more questions formed in his brain. "So, what are you normally like?"

"Ummm, ok, so you know how human hunters put traps down in long grass for small animals?"

Vax nodded.

"Well, imagine this is our grass," she gestured to the trees surrounding them.

Vax mouth dropped, usually good at maintaining surprise, but to his credit he just found out fairies exist and consider trees to be the size of grass. At this point, it was the magic of the circle that was keeping him upright and that was a sentence he never thought he’d say to himself. Ever.

 “Okay… okay… what is going to happen to me?”

She opened her mouth to respond, but paused, looking like her mental train of thought had screeched to a halt. “I’ll be honest I don’t know. I’ve never actually caught a human.”

Well that was a vote of confidence. “Well, um, congrats on your first? I still want to know what’s going to happen.”

The lady’s answer was interrupted by the sound of distant woofing.

She turned quickly. “Who goes there?”

Vax sighed happily. “That sounds like my sister’s dog.”

“Oh… is he friendly?”

“Yes, but he’s very loud and very big and could probably knock you over.”

“Shit, shit, shit… um, fuck, what do I do?”

Vax couldn’t help but laugh at an elegant fairy cussing like a sailor.

“You could let me go? Hunt something that isn’t me?”

She pouted. “I suppose…”

"Who knows, maybe I'll let you catch me a couple more times."

“I… really?”

“Not exactly, but I think I need a couple more lessons in fairy things.” Oh, he could hear Vex’s voice in the back of his head, asking him _why on earth are you flirting with a fairy?_

"Ok.” She smiled. “And you could explain more human things.”

“Okay, we could do that.” Vax found himself smiling. “Now, if you could, please?” He gestured to his feet.

“Oh, of course.” She waved her hand once, and the mushrooms all slowly shrunk into the ground. Vax tentatively tried to lift his foot, and let out a relieved sigh as his foot lighted with ease.

That moment, Trinket came bursting in and pounced on Vax, knocking him to the ground. Trinket eagerly licked Vax’s face.

“Yes, yes, it’s me, you big oaf.” Vax scratched behind Trinket’s ears, and wasn’t all that surprised to find the dog completely filthy. “You are going to need a bath, when we get home.”

That got Trinket off of him, and he back off with his tail between his legs, toward the lady.

“You can’t blame me, boy! You’re the one who went off running and rolling around in dirt!”

The woman giggled and at that, Trinket suddenly forgot about being worried about baths and happily bounded around her. She knelt to the ground and began petting him.

“I think that’s the quickest he’s made friends with somebody, even when my sister found him,” Vax commented, as he stood himself up. His legs still ached, but after everything he learned, it was a non-issue.

“He certainly is playful, but I should let you two get going.” She stood up.

Vax leaned over to grab Trinket’s leash, which was as dirty as him. He wrapped it several times around his wrist.

“You know, I just realized I never got your name.”

The lady froze. “I, um… I mean, I-” She took a breath. “It’s complicated.”

“Really?”

“I… we’re not supposed to tell humans this,” her voice got lower, “but names have significant power among my people. It’d be like giving a prized possession away and letting that person do whatever they want with it.”

“Oh. Well, what about nicknames?” He quickly added before she asked. “They’re a shortened form of your name. Would that be okay?”

She considered it for a moment. “I think so. In that case my name is… Key?”

“Can I call you Kiki?”

“I… yes, I like that.” She smiled.

He smiled back. “Okay, Kiki. My name is Vax, and as… interesting as it was to be captured by you, my sister is probably wondering where we’ve been.”

“Well, I’ll see you next time you’re around!”

He nodded and waved as Trinket started pulling him back home.

“Trinket,” he whispered, “You may be getting a bath, but you’re also gonna get the best treats we can afford once we get back.”

Trinket’s tail wagged happily.

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note, I am still getting caught up with Crit Role, so my apologies for not getting characterization perfect, but I can't wait till I'm done catching up to write fic. I'd burst from ideas.
> 
> Talk Critical Role with me: kappa77.tumblr.com


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